The Little Things
by templremus1990
Summary: Sometimes it's the little things that make up the bigger picture. A series of drabbles focusing on the life of the Ninth Doctor after the Time War, up until the End of the World, as he comes to realise who he is and how he has changed. Please R&R...


**The little things**

**A button.**

He has pressed it before, in countless ways, in different bodies, wiped out whole races and planets with one touch. He has killed before, watched death, fled destruction. Inside his head he hears them screaming, the death-cries of his whole planet resounding through him, driving him mad. All he wants is silence, an end to it all, and to their pain. He wants peace, and in that instant, as time and space is ripped apart around him and his people are purged from existence, he finds it.

He burns, first alive, then as he dies, only to be reborn.

**A light.**

That is the first thing he sees when he awakes; the gentle glow of power cells below the grating of his spaceship. His fingers trace the pattern of holes in the mesh design, waiting for sensation to return to the rest of his body. Everything is too raw, too alien, and it hurts. He can taste blood on his lips, and the smell of scorched velvet fills the air. His scalp prickles, and when he puts his hand to his head he is surprised by how short his hair has become.

He doesn't dare examine the rest of this new body, not yet, because he is afraid of what he might see there, though he can't remember why. He sits up slowly, feeling rivulets of dust run down his clothes, or what remains of them. He wonders, fleetingly, what happened, what could have been so terrible that he cannot recall anything of his last moments. Then he becomes aware of the gaping, deadly silence at the back of his mind and dreads the answer.

**A jacket.**

Black leather, old and battered, yet still strong. It fits him perfectly, of course, and in more ways than one. The rest is simple, black trousers and a black vest with a marsh-green jersey on top, the jacket over everything. He needs these clothes, because they are new, clean, and though the blood and dirt of a battle that he can neither remember nor forget has been washed from his skin he knows that it is still there, tainting him. He searches through the pockets of his old self, pulling out object after object; a yo-yo, a bag of sweets, now melted together, a sliver of rock from a planet long since gone, a sonic screwdriver. He spends hours adjusting the screwdriver to his liking, building a new design, adding more and more functions. He puts everything else away, including the rock, until he can bring himself to know how he died.

**A memory.**

He does not choose to follow the signal; his ship does. He awakes from the sleep into which he so often falls now, deep and empty to the point of oblivion, to find himself at the threshold of another adventure. He closes his eyes and feels the planet spin under his feet, and suddenly he is anchored, placed within a time, within a place, even if it is wrong, and there is no escape.

He doesn't want to go. He goes.

He finds death almost at once. A tall man, in his forties perhaps, dressed in a boiler suit. A name card marks him out; HP Wilson, Chief Electrician, Henrick's Department store. He closes the man's eyes and moves away, heading further and further into the basement, letting himself be lost in the chase.

"Who is it?"

He stops. The voice is loud, and slightly shrill with nerves. It is human.

"Right, I've got the joke! Who's idea was this? Was it Derek's?"

He pulls open the door as softly as he can, and sure enough they are all around her. For a long moment he is frozen, watching. They are so close, old enemies returned, and he knows suddenly that they should be dead, that _he_ should be dead. He knows, and for that moment he is lost, and the world hitches beneath him. He wants to let go.

"Derek, is this you?"

But she is human, and she is life. She must survive. He feels her hand, warm against his own, and holds it tight.

"Run!"

**A face.**

He reckons he must look about forty to this girl. Tall, with chiselled features, and, as he had thought, relatively little hair. He doesn't know quite what he was expecting with this body. He supposes he never hoped to survive.

"Ah, could've been worse. _Look_ at the ears."

He has a face now. He has a past. But he cannot think for the future, not yet. So that is why he leaves her, even when she saves him. He drifts, for a long time, yet somehow always winds his way back to Earth. He faces death, on several occasions, before he realises that he still wants to live. Then he thinks of her, and of the stars, and he knows what he must do.

She gave him a second chance. It's only fair, after all, that he should do the same.

"By the way - did I mention, it also travels in time?"

**Her smile.**

He leaves the door open and she runs to him, a smile on her face and a light in her eyes. After watching the world burn they eat chips and listen to an argument with the vendor over the price of ketchup. He catches her eye and they both laugh, not knowing why.

Then he takes her back to his ship and into another age, ready to begin again.


End file.
